The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 27

Religion The Orlando Sentinel, Saturday, March 24, 1984 B-Z Father and son show durability with WTLN radio By John Gholdston 1 SlMMi "SdMSMKtW mhwwrhsi flNMHMMVVP N(BBBBHBR I vt jr SI i nrr tr fr 1111 11 i 1 1 1 mmmmmnmmmmC wnwm 4 1 1 fif -T 'ft SENTINEL RELIGION WRITER About religion NEWS AND TRENDS Religious broadcasting in Central Florida has reached heights that few but the truly visionary could have foreseen 20 years ago. Today there are several large-audience radio and television stations beaming their gospel messages into Central Florida homes, carrying locally produced programs as well as material from national religious networks. The country is witnessing the heyday of the media minister preachers who deliver their messages to giant audiences from television studios carefully constructed to look like churches. They are raising and spending millions of dollars a day and dealing with "congregations" so large only computers can deal effectively with the correspondence and donor lists. But 20 years ago, while religious broadcasting was in its infancy, Central Florida was just giving birth to its first church-oriented radio stations.

to go to the front of the church and profess Jesus as savior met with resounding success recently when the entire congregation in the rural church jumped to its feet and rushed toward him. Divine intervention or not, though, Miller soon learned the cause for the mass conversion: A snake had dropped from the grass roof into the middle of the congregation. NEW BOOK EVANGELICAL WRITERS HIT. Franky Schaeffer, son of popular evangelical writer Francis Schaeffer, has released a book slamming major evangelical publications, literature and educational institutions for not taking stands on sensitive issues. Called Bad News for Modern Man, a takeoff on the name of a popular translation of the Bible, the book has caused a stir in publishing circles where the barbs were aimed.

A Chicago newspaper religion writer called the book "an unprecedented, gloves-off attack against the evangelical elites, a breathtakingly sarcastic and vitriolic screed that splashes rhetorical blood, among other places, all over Chicago and its western suburbs, where there is a major concentration of conservative Christian organizations." The editor of the popular evangelical magazine Christianity Today, which is one of the targets of Schaeffer's darts, called Bad News, "an ugly book filled with angry accusations against our most respected Christian leaders and institutions." In the book, Schaeffer said, "The secular world is untouched by a pietistic and retreating church, a church always trying to 'see the other point of a church never willing to make a stand." LEARN BYCOLORING PASSOVER BOOK. A 32-page coloring book has been issued by the Rabbinical Assembly in New York to help children learn about the celebration of Passover. Illustrations are accompanied by a brief, lively text. The material "gives children the opportunity to relate personally to Passover" and to learn about its basic concepts, said Rabbi Jules Harlow, director of publications for the assembly, which represents Conservative Judaism. At that time Tom Moffit a successful radio announcer in Philadelphia, had been a consultant to many of the top radio preachers in the Northeast and had set his sights on starting his own radio if JOHN GHOLDSTONSENTINEL Tom Moffit Jr.

looks over disc jockey Bill Ralph's shoulder at radio station. J- His son, Tom had at-Pik tended Hampden-DuBose CLERGY SALARIES AMONG LOWEST-PAID PRCk FESSIONALS. Clergy are about the lowest-paid professionals in the country, a study by the National Council of Churches shows. The average salary of the ministers of the churches surveyed was $20,790. Although that figure is almost double the results of a similar study done 10 years ago, the increase hasn't kept pace with inflation that amounted to 118.1 percent during that period, the interdenominational group reported.

The salary figures included any benefits received besides a paycheck, such as housing, utilities, insurance or medical coverage. However, about two-thirds of the clergy had outside income either from a working spouse, an additional job, savings or investments. Among the 11 U.S. Protestant denominations studied, salaries vary widely, ranging from a high of an average $24,420 for clergy of the former southern Presbyterian Church U.S., to a low of $12,670 in the relatively small Seventh Day Baptist Churches. The Southern Baptist Convention was next to the "bottom with $19,070.

Even below the lowest: women clergy. They had a median salary range of $14,000 to $16,000 compared with $20,00 to $22,000 for male clergy. CHURCH PACT MULTIDENOMINATIONAL WORK. Four churches in Allen-town, have signed a two-year covenant "to strive toward not doing individually what we could do together." The compact between St. Timothy Lutheran Church, Mediator Episcopal Church, First Presbyterian Church and St.

Thomas More Roman Catholic Church established a coordinating council and pledged the "sharing of facilities and programs wherever possible." The arrangement is not all physical. Each congregation also has agreed to pray for the other three at Sunday worship. BAPTIST MISSIONARY SUDDEN SUCCESS. The Rev. Ed Miller, a Southern Baptist missionary in Kitwe, Zambia, thought that his sermon and an invitation Moffit Sr.

Academy, a private nign school near Zellwood. Through visits to his son, Moffit decided he liked the area enough to buy a Central Florida station. A new station near Ocoee, owned by an Atlanta preacher, was available and Moffit made some preliminary negotiations to buy it. But some delays caused Moffit instead to build his own station from scratch in the Apopka area. He formed a broadcast company and, in the first part of 1964, went on the air with a station he called WTLN, named for members of his family: wife, Tom, Linda and Nancy.

The struggling young station hung on with a middle-of-the-road music format, laced with religious messages and programs, for several years. In 1968 Moffit Jr. became station manager and the station added an FM channel. As Federal Communications Commission regulations relaxed, the station aimed more and more of its air time to a strongly religious audience. supported by advertisers and by selling air time." Father and son both also object to labeling stations as "Christian." "It's a business.

It ought to be run like a-reputable business in a legitimate business world," Moffit Sr. said. "I'm the the station. We want the business we run to reflect our testimony, but we don't want to. be excused for not operating professionally because we call our station Several programs and sponsors have been with WTLN regularly since the station and the Moffits point to such loyalty as a measurement of their success.

"People won't stay with you for long if you don't shoot straight with them if they don't feel like they are getting results from their, dollars," Moffit Jr. said. "We have many of our programs tell us they consider us one of the model stations in the country. That's a good feeling." WTLN simulcasts its daytime schedule on 1520 AM and 95 FM. The AM station goes off the air at dark but the FM station continues, programming until midnight.

Today, the younger Moffit is still the station manager and his father's broadcast company, Alton Rainbow, is still the owner. That 20 years of continuous ownership makes WTLN a rarity in a broadcast market that has grown as rapidly as Orlando's. The station is planning activities this year to celebrate its 20th anniversary, including bringing in some popular speakers and performers for programs and concerts. Although Moffit Sr. still spends most of his time with his broadcast consultant business in Philadelphia, he has been in Orlando recently helping his son organize some of the anniversary events and continues to play a major role in the station's operation.

The 57-year-old broadcaster is not very happy about the amount of religious programming in the market today, though. "There is just not a large enough of a market to sustain multiple stations like we are seeing all over the country," he said. "I believe, and we run WTLN on that philosophy, that a station should support itself in the community. We never solicit money on the air for contributions to the station itself. We have it tiiaaiEBiBaa i Lutheran Church in America Bishop James R.

Crumley Jr. on religious persecution in Ethiopia, Namibia, Syria and the German Democratic Republic: "Religious freedom is denied more people today than at any previous time in history." Compiled from Sentinel services by John Gholdston Good thirds to eat in Food on Thursday The Orlando Sentinel 71 'M DO YOU OWN A MORTGAGE? If you are collecting on any type mortgage on property anywhere in the USA and wont to convert it into cash, call or write: GOLD MORTGAGE COMPANY 999 Woodcock Suite 209 Orlando, FL 32803 (305) 896-0003 Licensed Mortgage Brokers Member FAMB THE SPIRITUALIST CHURCH OF AWARENESS HAS MOVED TO: 3210 Chickasaw Trail, Orlando. The first service will be held at the new location March 25th at 10:30 a.m. GOSPEL MEETING Holden Heights Church of Christ 1000 22nd Street Orlando, Florida March 25-30 7:30 Nightly Curtis E. Flatt, Evangelist Birmingham, Alabama Except Sunday- Regular Hours: Bible Study: 9:00 A.M.

Worship, 9:50 A.M., 6:00 P.M. Chickasaw 7t The 19M World Almanac Only $4.95 at our offices. Or send your name, address and 5.90 to: The Orlando Sentinel, Public Services, P.O Box 1 1 00, Orlando FL 32802. The Orlando 15A Goldenrod Rd. 15A NORTH Belmont Plaza Ti FRFE TESTING FOR Sf MORS flnOs ff AT OFFICE OR IN YOUR HOME I RETIREES WE HONOR ALL UNION PLANS I UHANuE HEARING AID CENTERS 1 503 ORANTiE AVE 120 HWY 17-92 OPP ORANGE MEMORIAL H0SP JUST NO Of HWY 436 ORUNTX) FLA CASSELBERRY, FLA 32707 i bmm Call Now! 1 834-8776 1 Jy 01 I Sentinel I i- I "WW FH I I 4 niiif VSiiLfii.